Corrupt Is As Corrupt Does

It doesn't make me feel all that good to realize--as I have for several years--that the government of the United States is basically corrupt. While we normally associate corruption with improper or illicit financial gain, The Bush Administration has demonstrated time and time again and oh-so-vividly how political corruption can be used to much greater effect than mere short-term financial gain. The basic story of Bushies corrupting federal government departments, offices and processes just keeps getting repeated over and over again, in a variety of different ways, and it seems that there is no corner of the federal apparatus that can't be infected by the amoral lust for power that seems to drive the Bush/Rove cabal in the White House. Consider this extract from a New York Times editorial:

Across six years, the Bush administration has mocked all standards of conflict of interest by choosing private industry zealots for high regulatory posts — where they worked to roll back hundreds of rules on transportation, workplace and mine safety, the environment and other issues. The latest in this subversive chain must surely take the fox-in-the-henhouse statuette: President Bush has nominated Michael Baroody, lobbyist for the powerful National Association of Manufacturers, to lead the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

If approved by the Senate, Mr. Baroody would be in charge of regulating corporate members of his association that have run up millions of dollars in civil fines for violating the commission’s safety rules affecting millions of consumers.

As if the White House’s colossal sellout to business power was not evident enough, Mr. Baroody’s executive friends at N.A.M. are sending him off with a lucrative forget-me-not — a $150,000 severance payment. Compensation experts find this extraordinary for someone supposedly volunteering for government service in behalf of taxpayers.

Doesn't it make you feel good to know that the Food and Drug Adminstration, and the Federal Aviation Administration, two federal departments that are pretty important to the health and welfare of most Americans, and all the other myriad federal agencies, are being run in basically the same manner as the Consumer Product Safety Commission? Well of course it does.